Mentally ill Briton pleads guilty in NYC court to conspiring to set up terror camp

The federal court building at 500 Centre Street is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York (Reuters/Carlo Allegri) / Reuters

A mentally ill British man, who was extradited to the US on charges of conspiring to set up a jihadist training camp on a ranch in Oregon, has pleaded guilty in a New York court.

Haroon Rashid Aswat, 40,
a British citizen of Indian descent from West Yorkshire, is
accused of having conspired with Abu Hamza, a Muslim cleric who
preached in London in the 1990s and was convicted of terrorism
charges last May.

At the hearing in a federal court in Manhattan on Monday, Aswat
admitted that he had been ordered to help train recruits “who
wanted to participate in jihad on behalf of a terrorist
organization,” AP reported.

Prosecutors accused Aswat of arriving in Oregon – a
“pro-militia and firearms state” – with instructions on
how to make bombs and poisons to help set up a camp and stockpile
weapons and ammunition between 1999 and 2000.

Aswat, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, was extradited in
October last year from Britain to the US, after losing a long
legal battle. In January 2015 the European Court of Human Rights
finally ruled that his extradition had been legal.

Before pleading guilty Aswat again told the judge of his mental
condition, but she ruled that the sentencing should go ahead
because the suspect was receiving satisfactory care in the US and
was not showing any symptoms of schizophrenia.

Aswat faces up to 20 years in prison, with sentencing scheduled
for July 31.